Wakfu Way of the Ninja
Chapter Four
Sometime the next morning, Kakashi showed up and found his team playing cards. Good. That showed both patience and planning, useful skills. He didn't know who brought them, but Yugo was dealing.
"Ah, dang it!" Naruto said, looking at his hand. "Again!"
"Would you like to fold?" Yugo said. "You can do that, you know."
Naruto shook his head. "I never back down. That's my way of the ninja."
"That might not work so well with poker, but okay," Yugo said. "I'll bet three shuriken."
"I see your three shuriken and raise you two kunai," Naruto said.
"Are you sure you … nevermind. Hinata?"
Hinata put her cards face down on the grass. "I fold."
"Okay, I have a two-pair, and Naruto, you have … you have a jack high."
"Do I win?"
"No."
"Dang it! Okay, one more. I have a good feeling about this one."
Kakashi approached the group and sat down next to them. "Deal me in."
Naruto looked up in surprise. "Kakashi! You're late!"
"I never said when I'd show up. I just said sometime in the morning."
"It's one thirty. The morning ended over an hour ago."
"Huh." He needed to get a watch. But if he did, then he wouldn't have an excuse anymore. Not that anyone believed his excuses anyway.
"But now that you're here, we can go on missions and train and stuff!"
"This is training. Deal me in."
"That's what Yugo said. I wanted them to throw kunai at me until I learned how to catch them in midair with my back turned while reading a book–I needed to get a book, though–but Yugo said you can learn ninja skills from playing cards, like, um, what were they again?"
"Reading people's emotions and hiding your own," Yugo said while passing out cards. He grinned sheepishly. "It seemed safer than trying to kill each other until you arrived."
"Good, what else?"
"Um, risk analysis?" Hinata said.
"Yes, go on."
"Luck!" Naruto said.
Was luck a skill? No, but it still played a big part in everything. "You're all missing the most important skill you can learn from playing cards."
"What's that?" Naruto asked.
"I'll show you. Who wants to start the betting?"
Naruto picked up his cards. "Finally! Okay, I'll bet everything." He pushed a pile of kunai and shuriken and a few smoke bombs into the middle.
"I fold," Hinata said.
Yugo looked at Naruto carefully. "I don't think you're bluffing. But I'm not sure you remember what each hand is worth, either."
"Hey, that only happened, like three times! And besides, this is my first time playing this game, so cut me some slack!"
Yugo frowned and looked at his hand. "Well, if I fold, I might miss Kakashi's lesson, so what the heck. I'll see you."
"I'll bet one explosive tag."
Naruto gasped as he looked down at the piece of paper with a seal on it and the kanji for boom on the back. He licked his lips to stop himself from drooling.
"Wow. If we're betting five shuriken to a kunai and three kunai to one smoke bomb, how much is an explosive tag worth?"
"At this point, I think we just round it to everything," Yugo said. He showed his cards. "I have three of a kind."
Naruto grinned. "Then read 'em and weep, Yugo. I got five red cards. That's, what, a straight or a flush?"
"Five diamonds or five hearts is a flush," Yugo explained. "Three hearts and two diamonds is nothing."
"What? I think you're just making up rules as you go along."
"I'm not! It's on the back of the card box."
"It doesn't matter either way," Kakashi said. He showed them his hand, a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of hearts.
"Now, is that a straight or a flush?" Naruto asked Yugo.
"It's both."
"Oh. So, did he win?"
Hinata reached down to her own cards and flipped over a queen of hearts of her own. "He cheated."
"Ha!" Naruto said. "She caught you!"
"Good thing, too," he said. "Otherwise, I would have had to do it again. But yes, the most important skill you can learn from playing cards is how to cheat."
Yugo frowned. "Not the way I play it."
"And when you play, do you play to win or to have fun?"
"To have fun."
"And if you were betting your life?"
Yugo didn't answer.
"In a fight," Kakashi continued, "you can't decide how strong your enemies are, but you can decide how much of your own strengths you bring. It doesn't matter who would win in a 'fair' fight if you never let a fair fight occur."
Naruto nodded. "Like yesterday, when you set up all those traps for me. I still don't know how you managed to put them up so fast."
"And I still don't know how you managed to fall for every single one of them," Kakashi replied. "Now, what I did here wasn't very effective. Can anyone tell me why?"
"Because Hinata caught you!" Naruto said. Hinata looked away and blushed at the attention. "If this were a real casino, we'd be kicking your butt out of here by now."
Yeah, good luck with that. "Exactly, and cheating in a fight is worthless if your opponent knows you're doing it. If you know that your opponent has laid a trap for you, you're not going to fall into it. If your opponent knows you're trying to sneak up on him, then you're not sneaking up on him."
The kids should have learned that at the academy, but since Hyuugas were impossible to sneak up on, they seldom valued learning the craft themselves, and Naruto was, well, maybe he was just stupid. And Yugo seemed to be well brought up, which was nearly as bad.
He stood up when Yugo offered him the explosive tag he bet. "We weren't playing for keeps," he said. "My dad says I can't gamble until I'm eighteen."
"But he's fine with you being a ninja."
"Yeah. Why?"
Yep, he was well brought up. That was going to be trouble. "No reason. But I was playing for keeps."
Yugo looked down at the tag. "So who won?"
Naruto looked up eagerly. "Ooh! Was it me?"
"No," Kakashi said. "Hinata saw through my deception, so she gets it."
"W-what?" she asked. "But … but I folded."
Kakashi shrugged. "So?" They taught how to use explosive tags at the academy, didn't they? Well, as long as she didn't set it off on accident, she'd be fine. "Come one, let's head over to the Hokage's Tower and get you kids a mission."
Naruto grinned. "Finally!"
WWW
"Our mission is to do what?"
The Hokage took a drag on his pipe with his, "I'm too old for this job," expression on his face. "You are to clean up Kiwinichi Park. All relevant details, including pay, are included on this scroll." He handed a scroll to Kakashi, who bowed respectfully.
"But that's not a mission!" Naruto protested. "That's community service!"
"Can't it be both?" Yugo asked.
"You're not helping."
"But really, the park need to get cleaned up, and we need a mission. What's the problem?"
"We're ninjas, not janitors! Come on, old man, isn't there a missing nin that needs to be tracked down, or someone needing a bodyguard? Ooh! You could send us on a heist! I always wanted to do a heist!" Both the Hokage and Kakashi gave him a sharp look. "Um, in a legal, Konoha-approved sort of way."
The Hokage sighed. "I do happen to have a number of C-rank missions with a certain level of risk. But they are reserved for genin and chunin who have proven that they can handle the danger, that they can work together effectively as a team, and, most of all, that they can follow orders. You want a C-rank mission, Naruto? Prove you're worthy of it by showing me that you can handle the D."
WWW
Judging by the discarded liquor bottles, chicken bones, and discarded underwear, Kiwinichi Park had been the victim of a few wild parties recently. There was a playground in the middle with a few sculptures that at one point might have been fun and kid-friendly, but with much of the paint eroded, it had become nightmarish zombies of their former glory.
"Well, this is one heck of a first mission," Naruto said, glowering. "We'll need all of our courage and our strength to get through this alive."
"I know what you mean," Yugo said with mock seriousness. "Some of that broken glass looks vicious."
Kakashi sat down on a bench. "I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle," he said, pulling out a book.
Naruto glared at him. "Are you going to just sit there and read the whole time?"
"Yup." He glanced up from a page. "This is your mission. I'm just here to supervise."
"Supervise what?"
"Your learning."
"And what, dare I ask, are we supposed to learn from picking up garbage?"
"I'm sure you can figure it out."
"It would be a lot easier if you just told us."
Kakashi didn't even look up from his book. "I didn't pick this job because it was easy."
"I'll bet."
"So what can we learn from this mission?" Yugo asked. "Not to litter? What do you think, Hinata?"
Hinata shrugged, hiding her face further behind her collar. "Um, obedience? And humility?"
"Obedience?" Naruto repeated. "Humility? I don't want to learn either of those things! 'Because someone told you to' is the worst reason to do anything ever!"
"I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for missions that hire us out to do whatever we want," Kakashi said.
"Yesterday's mission was all about teamwork," Yugo said. "Maybe this is the same thing, to see how well we work together. Efficiency?"
Naruto furrowed his brow, then his eyes lit up. "Hey, Kakashi! Is there a reward for getting the mission done early?"
Kakashi scoffed. "No. If you get done early, the Hokage will just send you on another one."
"Really?" He beamed. "Okay, that's it then. I'm going for the record! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" An army of Naruto clones appeared and ran off to every corner of the park to pick up garbage. Whenever one found a candy wrapper or a shoe, it would return and drop it into the dumpster, but soon they swarmed the dumpster, shoving each other out of the way to drop off their trash and return for more.
It would have been more efficient to form a line, Yugo thought, but no, even that would waste too much time. "Hey, Naruto!" he said. "Don't come to the dumpster. Stay out in the park and gather the trash into a bunch of small piles. I'll throw you a portal to drop it into."
Twenty Naruto clones looked at him. "OKAY!" they said in unison.
Yugo waited by the dumpster as the clones spread out and went to work. Hinata looked around as though not sure what part she should play. If she went into the field, she'd be no better than another clone.
"Hey, Hinata," Yugo said. "When Naruto finishes with the big stuff, we'll need you to use your Byakugan to spot check everything."
Hinata nodded, and within a few minutes, they were done. Yugo didn't know what the record was, but he was pretty sure they just broke it.
WWW
"That was pretty good," the Hokage said back at the tower. "I expected that mission to take you longer."
Naruto tried to contain his excitement. "What can I say? These D-rank missions just aren't enough of a challenge. Maybe you could C if something tougher is available."
The Hokage gave him a flat look. "Right. Well, it just so happens that I have here an extremely dangerous …."
"Yes?" Naruto asked eagerly.
"And difficult …."
"Yes? Yes?"
"Babysitting mission."
Naruto's face fell. "What? You're kidding me!"
The Hokage sighed. "Alright, I confess. I am kidding you."
His eyes lit up again. "You are?"
The Hokage nodded. "Yes. It's not dangerous at all."
WWW
"So don't think of it as a babysitting job," Yugo said as they walked to the address on their mission scroll. "Think of it as a bodyguard job."
"Bodyguard, right," Naruto said, nodding. "Real ninjas do that all the time, don't they? Hey, do you think anyone's going to try to kill, um, what were their names again?"
"Miriko, age five, and Shinto, age eight," Hinata said, reading the scroll. She felt like she was the only person on the team nervous about the mission. Their first mission had been easy; one could take a long time to clean up a park, but not fail. While babysitting, their charges could jump out a window, swallow a fork, or run away if she looked away for too long, and that could haunt her for the rest of her life.
And it would look bad on her record. Her father would be horribly disappointed. Again.
"I doubt it," Yugo said. "If someone wanted to kill them, I think the scroll would have mentioned it. Besides, they're kids. No one wants to kill you until you're …." He turned to Kakashi. "About how old do you need to be for that?"
"Oh, I'd say twelve is average."
"Huh." Naruto sounded disappointed. "So no one's going to try to … hold on, I'm twelve!"
Kakashi shrugged. "Funny how that works."
"He's just messing with us," Yugo said.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because since we've met him, he has done nothing else."
"I'm being perfectly serious this time," Kakashi said. "No one wanted to kill me until after I turned thirteen, but I was an exceptionally likable child."
Naruto gave Yugo a look. "You're right, he is messing with us. But back to the mission, we can't protect the kids from danger if there is no danger, so I'm thinking two of us babysit, and the third person has to try to kidnap them."
Yugo nodded thoughtfully. "It could be interesting. How are we going to decide who's on offence and who's on defense?"
Naruto grinned. "Rock paper scissors. It's the universal problem solver."
"I'm going to have to stop you kids right there," Kakashi said. "What you're doing is deliberately making your mission more difficult than it needs to be, and there's not a single respectable ninja in Konoha who does that. Except for maybe Gai, and, well, he's Gai."
"Who's Gai?" Naruto asked.
"A guy I know."
"Gai's a guy you know?" Yugo asked. "I bet you made up that name just so you could make that pun."
"I wish. But if you don't know Gai, give it time. He likes to announce himself. A lot. And he wears spandex."
"A guy named Gai in spandex," Naruto said. "Yeah, he's starting to sound made up to me too."
Hinata wasn't sure. She had studied body language, as was expected of all members of the Hyuuga Clan, and Kakashi hadn't displayed any of the telltale signs of lying. But Hinata wasn't a master of the craft, Kakashi was an experienced Jounin, and he seemed like the type to be a serial liar just to convince them to be more discerning.
They arrived at the client's' house. The family lived in the suburbs in one of Konoha's residential districts. It wasn't in a walled off neighborhood like her clan had, but somehow it seemed safer without being imposing.
A civilian couple answered the door. The man was thin, with short black hair that was thinning in places and glasses. The woman had a gentle face and long brown hair in a braid.
Naruto took the lead and announced themselves. "Team Naruto, reporting for duty, Mr. and Mrs. … what are their names again?"
Hinata opened the scroll. "Mikaya."
"And since when are we Team Naruto?" Yugo asked.
"Oh, sorry, did you have another name in mind?"
"We're Team Seven," Kakashi said.
"See, that's a boring name," Naruto said. He turned to Hinata. "What do you think? Team Naruto sounds way better, right?"
"Um …." How could she respond to that? "I'm fine with anything, really." The couple watched them with growing concern. If Hinata had been willing to step up, she'd have tried to convince them that they were more professional than they sometimes appeared, but ….
"The Hokage sent four of you?" Mr. Mikaya asked. "There must be some mistake. We only ordered one D rank."
"They're rookies," Kakashi explained. "They're still at the stage where this doubles as training."
"I see," he said. "And …."
"And the fee is the same no matter how many people it takes," Kakashi said.
"Ah." Mr. Mikaya's expression relaxed, though his wife kept a forced smile on her face. "Come on in. We just need to grab a few things. Make yourselves at home."
They filed in through the door and were greeted by a wide eyed child. "Woah, you got four of them this time!" The boy had short dark hair, green eyes, and had the sleeves of a sweatshirt tied around his neck like a cape. "Am I in trouble?"
"No, they just …." Mr. Mikaya turned to the team. "These are our kids. I'll let you all get acquainted." The couple went through a door to another room.
"So," the boy–Shinto, according to the scroll–said. "Do you guys do any tricks?"
"Tricks?" Naruto said. "Kid, we're professionals, seasoned veterans of the ninja arts. We've seen things–done things–that you would not believe. We do not do tricks." He grinned. "But I do like showing off. Check this out!" He put his hands together, forming a hand seal.
"Keep it family friendly, Naruto!" Yugo warned.
Naruto made a shadow clone, and both of them looked at Yugo. "Of course. I'm not an idiot."
"I've seen this trick before," Shinto said. He poked the clone and gasped. "It's real!" He turned to Yugo. "What can you do?"
"Well, I can't make shadow clones, but I can do this." He traced a circle with the glowing palm of his hand and made a portal and jumped through it, appearing behind the boy.
"Wow! That's so cool!"
Naruto smirked. "Yeah, that's actually the only trick he knows. I know things that you can't learn in the academy, techniques I invented."
"I think Shinto might be a bit too young for your original techniques," Yugo said.
"Of course not. He's almost as old as Konohamaru, and that guy went crazy over them."
"Who's he?"
"A groupee."
"You have a groupee?"
"Of course. Don't you?"
"How'd you get a groupee?"
"I gave his grandpa a bloody nose."
Yugo considered that. "Makes sense. Kind of a jerk move, but makes sense."
"No, it's not like that! The old man tried to make me act all dignified and stuff for a picture, and really, the Hokage of all people should know better than that."
Hinata smiled at the exchange. For all his expressed frustrations at being issued a babysitting mission, he seemed to be getting into the mood.
She spotted a little girl peeking out from behind a table. The girl had her brother's green eyes and she wore her hair longer and unbound. For a moment, she reminded Hinata of how her own little sister, Hanabi, used to be, back before … well, during better times.
Hinata smiled at her. "Hello. My name's Hinata. What's your name?"
The girl chewed on a strand of hair and didn't answer.
What was the name on the mission scroll? "Is it … Miriko? Is that your name?"
Miriko's eyes grew wide. "Are you psychic?"
Hinata smiled again. "Maybe."
"What's my favorite color?"
And she had managed to dig herself into a hole. Maybe. The girl was wearing a blue shirt, blue jeans, and blue socks, so Hinata made an educated guess. "Blue?"
Miriko's eyes grew even wider. "Wow!"
Hinata smiled until she heard a voice from the other side of the door.
"I'm not leaving that monster with our children!" It was Mrs. Mikaya's voice, muffled so Hinata could barely hear it. Naruto and Yugo, still talking to Shinto, didn't notice at all, and Kakashi continued to read his book.
"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," Mr. Mikaya said. "It hasn't killed anyone in years, and there are three of them and one of … it, so what's the worst that could happen?"
"It could–it could be a bad influence!"
"Everyone's a bad influence on our children! Our kids are perfect!"
"The last ninja we hired wasn't. You know, the one who was always talking about the virtues of hard work? Shinto started cleaning his room on his own after that. For a few days."
Hinata heard a sigh. "So, what? Do we just cancel our night out?"
"Yes! Even if we didn't, you know we wouldn't be able to enjoy the evening while worrying about what that thing was doing to our children."
Hinata heard footsteps coming towards her, and she moved away from the door so she wouldn't be caught eavesdropping.
Mr. Mikaya opened the door and stepped into the room. "So this is awkward, but the show my wife and I were planning on seeing got cancelled."
"Too bad," Kakashi said, glancing up from his book. "What show was that?"
"It was, um, well, it doesn't matter now. But since we're not going anywhere, we really don't need a sitter."
"You sure?" Kakashi asked. "There are plenty of good places that are open downtown. I could recommend one or two."
"Yes, well, there's really nothing we'd rather do than just stay home with the kids." Both he and his wife wore the same smile: forced, nervous, and afraid.
"Your call. But you do know that these missions are nonrefundable, right?"
Mr. Mikaya's face fell. "They're not?"
"That's fine," his wife said quickly. "I guess there's nothing left for you here, so you're free to go." Her eyes flickered toward the door hopefully.
"Well okay then," Kakashi said. "Mission accomplished." He walked out the door without making sure the rest of the team was following him.
"What, already?" Yugo asked. "Well, good luck on joining the ninja academy next year, Shinto."
Naruto stood still, a dazed expression on his face until Yugo shook him. "Oh, right. Yeah, see if you can get into Iruka's class. He's the best."
Hinata wasn't sure what the parents had been talking about, but they seemed to have been convinced that one of her teammates was dangerous. Monster, they had said. Perhaps they were talking about Hinata herself? No, whoever it was they were talking about had killed people in the past, and Hinata had never done that.
So who was it that the civilian couple was so afraid of? It couldn't be Naruto. She liked him more than she was willing to admit, but there was little in him that could inspire fear. His grades in the academy were so bad it was a miracle he had passed at all. The only unexplainable thing about him was a large chakra seal on his stomach, and nearly everyone in the Hyuuga clan had one on the forehead.
Yugo? That didn't make any sense either. He came from a civilian family, and while some of the great clans of Konoha looked down on such, at least he didn't have generations of blood behind him. When Hinata activated her Byakugan, she could see what looked like wings growing under his hat, and that was a bit weird–well, very weird–but not frightening.
And that left … that left Kakashi. Of course. As a jounin, it would be surprising if he had never killed anyone, and covered by his forehead protector was an eye that wasn't his. Maybe she was biased because people had tried to cut out her eyes when she was younger, but that was still pretty dang creepy.
She bowed to the couple before leaving. Good manners were just good manners, and if she had children like they did, she wouldn't want Kakashi to babysit them either.
WWW
Kakashi had a way of vanishing without being in a hurry, and he left the three of them as soon as they got out of the door. He seemed totally unfazed by the cancelled mission and considered it more like a quick victory instead of a failure.
Yugo felt mostly the same. He remembered a couple of babysitters growing up, but none of them came close to having Dad home, so if the Mikaya's decided to spend more time with each other, then good for them.
Naruto, though, seemed to be taking it personally, and his mood was contagious. When he was happy, he was loud happy, and when he was depressed, the silence was crushing. Hinata was the opposite and kept her moods muted, but Yugo could tell she was starting to echo Naruto's mindset.
"Well, maybe we'll get a fun mission tomorrow," Yugo said.
"Yeah," Naruto said, looking down. "Maybe."
Yugo didn't understand what was bothering him. Naruto hadn't even wanted to go babysitting. He had wanted something big and challenging. Of course, after they got there, he had gotten into it and had grown more enthusiastic. No, Yugo realized. He hadn't grown enthusiastic, he had made himself enthusiastic, he had forced enthusiasm into his veins, and then the mission was yanked out from under him, leaving him … empty.
Well, Naruto was pretty resilient, and he'd manage to force himself into enthusiasm again on his own in a day or two … but what was the point of being on a team if you had to solo everything?
"Question," Yugo said. "How long do you think it will be before we get some actually fun missions?"
Naruto looked up. "I don't know. Maybe in a few years after we're all jounin they'll take us off picking up litter and move us up to painting fences."
Yugo nodded. "That seems like a gross misuse of our abilities, because let's face it, we're amazing."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Yeah! We are amazing."
It was working. "If I had a mission that required subterfuge, subtlety, and sick-awesome ninja tricks, I would definitely hire us. In fact, I think I will."
Naruto looked at him. "What?"
"See, I have a job to do that's perfectly suited to our unique skill sets, and I want to hire this team."
"You do?" Interest grew in Naruto's eyes, and then hunger. "This job of yours, is it difficult?
"Impossible."
"Dangerous?"
"Deadly."
He grinned. "Well, I'm game. What about you, Hinata?"
Hinata shot Yugo an unreadable look. "Okay."
"Great." His plan was working, if plan was even the right word. "Now we just need a place to work out the details."
"Oh, we could go over to my place," Naruto offered. "Of course, it's kind of hot there because the AC's broken. And it smells like a bit like rancid milk since the fridge stopped working. Maybe my place isn't the best to have people over. How about your place, Hinata?"
"Um, I don't think my father would approve."
"Your dad doesn't like you having your friends over?"
She shook her head. "I don't think he likes any of those things."
"Well that's no problem," Yugo said. "Because I know the perfect place. Follow me. I'll take you to the Crunchy Gobball." He didn't know what the mission was going to be, but he had minutes to make something up. Plenty of time.
WWW
The Crunchy Gobball had a warm, noisy, and friendly atmosphere and was the sort of place that Hinata would never patronize on her own, knowing that such a place was beneath her station. Whatever that meant.
"Hey Dad! I'm home!" Yugo jumped into the arms of massive man with a long, drooping mustache.
Hinata felt something shift in the pit of her stomach. She always did before such scenes. It wasn't jealousy, not really. Just a twinge of sadness. Even when her father had been proud of her, he had never been affectionate. She noticed the expression on Naruto's face, and immediately felt guilty. At least she had a father, even a cold, stern one.
She realized that Yugo was introducing them.
"… Naruto, and this is Hinata."
Hinata bowed respectfully as the big man greeted them.
"Welcome, welcome. Any friend of Yugo's is welcome here. Take a seat, have a meal on the house."
They sat down at an open table and Yugo jumped in and out of a portal and set down a pair of menus. He could always use his unique abilities as naturally as he could walk. It made her own use of the Byakugan feel clumsy in comparison.
Naruto glanced through the menu. "Do you serve ramen here?"
Yugo shook his head. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Though I can recommend the soup of the day."
"What's that?"
"It's steak."
"Do you have steak-flavored ramen?"
"We have steak-flavored steak."
"Okay, I'll have that."
"Perfect. And you, Hinata?"
"Um, do you have salad?"
"Our steak is cooked with vegetables."
"Could I have those by themselves?
"Sure. So that's one steak-flavored steak, and one steak without the steak." Yugo jumped through a portal, leaving them alone.
Hinata shot Naruto a furtive glance and realized that with the two of them sitting together at a restaurant, it was almost like they were on a date.
That didn't make it easier to make eye contact, which was difficult for her at the best of times. She looked away, and noticed some of the other patrons shooting them dirty looks. No, not them, him. Apparently, Naruto was known around here, and not well liked. Naruto, for his part, deliberately ignored them.
A portal opened over the table, dropping a plate in front of her, then another in front of Naruto, and finally a third, dropping Yugo.
"Alright," he said. "So, we've been on a team together for about three days now, and every time Kakashi shows up, he's always reading the same orange book. Why do you think that is?"
Naruto shrugged. "He's a slow reader?" He tried to bite off a chunk of his steak without cutting it first.
"Maybe it's worth rereading?" Hinata suggested.
Yugo smiled mischievously. "Come on, guys. Use your imagination."
"Advanced ninja techniques," Naruto said with his mouth full. He swallowed. "Really, really cool ones."
Hinata doubted that, but she didn't contradict him.
"Exactly," Yugo said. "And Kakashi always teaches us in a roundabout way, right? Just yesterday he tried to teach us teamwork by turning us against each other."
"He wanted us to see underneath the underneath," Hinata said.
"Yes! The obvious choice was to compete against each other, the less obvious choice was to work together against him. Now we're in the same situation. He's supposed to train us to become better ninjas, but what has he done today? He got there late and spent the rest of the day reading his book while we did missions. The only explanation I can think of is that he's waiting for us to take the initiative."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "I like that! I always thought that the academy was so boring because we had to spend all day sponging up lectures to regurgitate on the tests, but we're not kids anymore! We're real ninjas, so we get to decide how we learn! Um, so what was it we're supposed to be learning again?"
Yugo grinned. "Think about it. What's the main job of a ninja team?"
Naruto frowned. "Assassinations?"
Yugo gave him a flat look. "I don't think we're supposed to try to assassinate Kakashi. I don't think we can assassinate Kakashi."
"Okay, bodyguarding?"
"He's not in danger either. Hinata, I know you have some ideas. What do you think?"
"Um, spying? Information gathering?"
Yugo grinned. "Exactly! He reads his book all day to taunt us. He might set us up with boring D missions for the next few years, but I guarantee that the next stage of our training is in that book, waiting for us to find out what it is."
WWW
The next day after their first mission they set their plan in motion.
"Well, that was fun," Yugo said.
"Fun?" Naruto repeated. "That was horrible. I never want to taste paint again."
"Take it as a learning experience," Kakashi suggested. "Next time you trip into an open paint can, close your mouth first. That's what I do, and to this day I have never tasted the stuff. Anyway, good job team, or at least decent job. I'll see you all tomorrow, same time same place."
"Now," Naruto said, "when you say 'same time,' do you mean when you asked us to meet you, or when you finally showed up?"
"Either or." He started to walk away.
"Hold on," Yugo said. "Before we all split up, who's up for a dip at the hot springs? My dad gave me four tickets yesterday, so there's enough for everyone." They had pooled their money together, bought those tickets, and had given them to his dad first, but it counted.
WWW
In the hot springs, Kakashi left his book in his locker, so part one of the plan was a success. He kept his mask on though, which Naruto thought was weird, and Yugo kept his hat on, which left Naruto as the only sane person.
"So, do you ever take your hat off?"
"For what?"
"I don't know. To … do hatless stuff?"
"I don't do hatless stuff."
"Huh. How about you, Kakashi? Do you do maskless stuff?"
"Nope."
"Well, that's that then. I do naked stuff all the time, like peeing. I mean, I could go all the way back to the locker room, but the water here's already warm, and it's not like anyone's going to notice."
"I'm pretty sure we will notice," Yugo said, "and I'd rather not test it."
"Okay, fine," Naruto said, getting out of the water. "I'll pretend to be civilized and go in a toilet instead." Back in the locker room, he sent out a shadow clone to replace himself in the hot springs, got dressed, and left to get Hinata.
WWW
"I really do not feel comfortable with my part in this plan," Hinata said. She never had been. She should have brought it up before they settled on the plan, but if there was any way she could get out of it, she'd take it.
Naruto cocked his head. "You are? How come?"
"Because," she said. "I have to sneak into the boy's locker room!" Her face turned red just by saying it, and if their positions had been reversed and one of her teammates had needed to sneak into the girl's locker room, at least everyone would understand what was wrong. But there was some double standard involved so it didn't occur to either of them that there was anything perverse with her entering a situation where boys her age could be taking their clothes off in front of her.
"So?"
"So, I have to sneak into the boy's locker room!"
"… and?"
"And what if I run into someone?"
He let out a laugh. "Don't worry about it. No one's going to know it's you."
"But, can't Yugo just open a portal into Kakashi's locker?"
"No, the lockers are too small, his portals are too big, and he needs to keep an eye on Kakashi. I can't pick locks very well, so that leaves you. Now quit worrying and show me your sexy technique."
She blushed again. "It's just a transformation technique."
"If it comes with a sex change, it counts."
She opened her mouth to argue, but she had nothing more to say. She formed a hand seal and took the form of her cousin Neji. She shared his eyes and skin tone, but he was taller and had longer hair. The differences weren't just superficial either. He was fierce, driven, confident. He was everything a Hyuuga should be.
She noticed Naruto smirking. "So that's what you're into."
"Um, what?"
"Come on, I'll show you where Kakashi's locker is."
She followed him into the locker room–the boy's locker room, where there would be boys of all ages in varying states of undress. She swallowed and kept her eyes fixed her eyes on the floor following Naruto's feet.
"Neji, my eternal rival!"
Oh no. A pair of feet appeared in front of her, cutting her off. Bare feet. She closed her eyes.
"So you too have decided to relax from a day of hard training in Konoha's fine onsen! Truly, there is no better way to revitalize the springtime of one's youth!"
Hinata didn't consider herself a bad person, but her karma was horrible. Whoever this was apparently knew Neji, and he was probably naked. But no matter who he was, Neji wouldn't face him with his eyes closed and head bowed. He would be fierce, driven, and confident. She straightened her neck and faced the, well, the ceiling mostly, and opened her eyes.
Neji's "eternal rival" was a boy a bit older than her with black hair, thick eyebrows, and abs. Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down.
"Will you not speak? Truly your nature of being both strong and silent gives nothing away." He smiled like he was advertising toothpaste.
Speak? Right, she needed to say something, something that only Neji would say. "Um …." Brilliant. To make matters worse, she looked down reflexively and the boy's angry elephant trumpeted at her. Oh no, someone help me!
"Harem no jutsu!" A dozen blonde naked women appeared out of nowhere, burying Neji's rival in old men's dreams.
"Aah! No! I'm sorry Gai-sensei! I failed you!"
Hinata hurried away, not sure how long Naruto's harem would distract him, and she found Naruto just around the next corner, still as a naked woman.
"That was priceless!" He doubled over in a fit of laughter, leaning against her. Still naked.
"Um, could you please change back now?" She was feeling dizzy, and if she fainted then she would have to answer a lot of awkward questions.
"Right, right, because girls aren't allowed here." He dismissed the transformation and returned to his normal form in his signature orange jumpsuit. Thank goodness. "Anyway, Kakashi's locker is right here. It's all you, Hinata!"
She pulled out a wire and stuck it into the lock, using her Byakugan to find the tumblers. A moment later, there was a click.
WWW
"Caw! Caw! I said, caw!"
Yugo looked up. They had decided that Naruto would signal with a bird call, but maybe he should have demonstrated it before hand. He glanced at Naruto's shadow clone, who nodded.
"Well, I should get going," he said. He left, got dressed, and met up with his teammates. "Did you get it? Yes! You got it!"
Naruto grinned. "Was there ever any doubt?"
"Alright, we need to be fast if we want to read it and put it back before Kakashi finds out it's missing. If there's a message in code, we'll just have to copy it down and decipher it later. So, who wants the honors?"
"Hinata," Naruto said. "Trust me, I've seen what she had to go through to get this book, and no one deserves this more than she does."
"Really? What happened?"
"I'd rather not say," Hinata said.
Naruto grinned. "I'll tell you later."
Hinata accepted the book, opened it, and screamed. She screamed, pulled out the explosive tag Kakashi had given her the day before, slapped it onto the book, and threw it into the air.
WWW
In the onsen, Kakashi heard an explosion and felt … something else. "What was that?"
One of Gai's students spoke up. "It sounded like an explosion." He was one of the only other people there, besides Naruto's shadow clone. He had a name, but Kakashi always mentally referred to him as Mini-Me.
"No, not just that. I felt … a disturbance."
WWW
"Well," Yugo said. "I guess we're not putting the book back after all."
"It looks like the book was booby trapped," Naruto said. "Dang it! We should have been ready for something like that!"
"It wasn't trapped," Hinata said. She felt sick. In one day, she had snuck into the boy's locker room, seen two people naked including her genderbent teammate, and had stolen a book of–of pornography! She was turning into a pervert. She needed to lie down. She wanted to curl up in a fetal position and cry, but she'd settle for lying down. "It's just that … there are some things that mortal eyes were not meant to see."
Naruto frowned. "But Kakashi reads that stuff all day."
That was true. He spent all day reading porn, and he had someone else's eye in his head. No wonder that family hadn't wanted him babysitting.
"Yeah," Yugo said. "But he always reads it with one eye closed. Mortal eyes can't see it, but maybe one mortal eye can."
"Oh, that makes sense."
Hinata hadn't even wanted to go on this mission, but Naruto and Yugo were having fun and she didn't want to stop them, and now she was scarred for life.
"So what do we do now?" Yugo asked. "Kakashi's going to notice his book is gone."
"I bet he will." Naruto grinned. "But no one knows it was us. Anyone could have broken into his locker and stolen his book."
Yugo frowned. "I hope you're right, because if Kakashi finds out it was us, he is going to be furious."
WWW
When Kakashi returned to his locker, he found his copy of Icha Icha Paradise missing.
So, that's what they were up to. For some reason he thought that his students had lured him to the hot springs to get him to take his mask off, but this was even more ambitious. They should have tried to return it before he noticed it was missing, but the Icha Icha series was hard to put down. Well, they could keep it. He had over a dozen copies back home.
They grow up so fast. Just the day before yesterday they were stumbling through the bell test, and already they were planning heists and stealing his porn. It nearly brought a tear to his eye.
Those kids worked well together, better than he had any right to expect. Maybe they were ready for the next stage in their training, because if they were advanced enough to steal his porn, they were ready to learn to climb trees. Really, if they were that advanced already, they were ready for anything.
WWW
A/n And here's chapter four. I could have skipped to where plot happens, but I thought it would be fun to have the team get used to ninja life at home first. Thank you to everyone who left reviews on this, and if there's anything you liked, anything that bothers you, or anything you'd like to see in the future, feel free to let me know.
